June 22, 2012 – Two amendments that would provide relief to the commercial fishing industry in Massachusetts are part of the Agriculture Reform Food and Jobs Act of 2012, passed Thursday by the U.S. Senate, 64 to 35.
More commonly known as the Farm Bill, the bill contains two amendments inserted by Sen. John F. Kerry to aid the struggling fishing industry.
One amendment expands an existing agricultural Emergency Disaster Loan program to include commercial fishermen while the other thwarts an attempt by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set up parallel regulations for the processing of catfish, which currently fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration.
"This is a big dual win for Massachusetts fishermen. Because we got these amendments passed, our seafood processors won't be subjected to a moronic double-regulation and our fishermen will be eligible for immediate disaster relief," Kerry said in a press release from his office.
The bill must now go before the House of Representatives for a vote. A staffer at Rep. Barney Frank's office said that the congressman was unavailable for omment on Thursday evening.
The USDA's Farm Service Agency currently provides disaster loans to assist farmers, ranchers or aquaculture producers who have suffered significant losses, such as crop failures or destruction of buildings, when a particular area is declared a disaster area by the president or the Secretary of Agriculture.
Kerry's amendments would make commercial fishermen eligible to apply for these loans from the USDA. "I've had one goal in this debate on the farm bill, and that's to make the point that fishermen from the Northeast who risk their lives to put food on our tables needed to be treated with the same respect as farmers in the Midwest," Kerry said in his statement.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times.